Chapter Twenty-Three #2
While she ate this strange peace offering at her desk, Daniil took a seat at her chessboard. His signet ring glinted in the near-darkness of the room as he rearranged the pieces. After a few minutes, he asked, “Feeling more reasonable now?”
Admittedly, she was. “It’s been kind of a rough night.”
His voice had the air of an eye roll. “It’s not over yet. Come here.”
Reluctantly, Shea dragged herself to the board, where he was playing through some game by memory.
His expression was less hostile than usual like this.
If anything, he looked troubled, with the little frown notched between his brows.
He’d lost his glasses, after all. He was probably straining his eyes.
Shea studied the position. It took her only a few seconds to realize it wasn’t so historical, after all.
This was a game Ciara had played in Casablanca a few years ago, against Ibrohim Nabiyev, an Uzbek grandmaster.
It was a devastating game—for Nabiyev, anyway.
He’d been one move away from checkmate, but Ciara claimed it was a draw.
She was right, in the end. Once fifty moves pass with no captures, the game’s over.
“How well do you know Ciara’s games?”
“Well.” Too well, really.
“Is that so?” he pressed. “I want to know her opening repertoire. I want to know what kinds of positions make her uncomfortable. I want to know what lines she’s lost against and what lines she hasn’t seen in three years.”
“Believe me, I know. Don’t you want to do your own prep?”
“It’s possible I’ll play Ciara eventually,” he said offhandedly. Shea tried not to feel insulted by his implicit vote of no confidence. “Lily is hardly worth worrying about.”
Shea longed to confide in him, yet she could feel Fuamnach’s magic cold around her heart and pinning down her tongue. “You think so?”
“It’s a fluke she’s here at all. She’s a fine player, but…”
“Not like us,” Shea supplied.
“No,” he said reluctantly. “Not like us.”
It shocked her—both his agreement and how much she appreciated it. Maybe she was getting soft, but Daniil had grown on her. She stood abruptly from her seat. “Hold on. I meant to give something to you.”
She went to her vanity. There wasn’t much on it, much less in it. But tucked away in the velvet-lined drawer was the necklace he’d dropped on the heath. The string of pearls lay cool against her palm, each of them alight with an iridescent sheen. She returned to the board and offered it to him.
He stared at it, his lips parted silently. Emotion shone in his eyes before he blinked it away. Very carefully, he took it from her. “Where did you get this?”
“You dropped it, sometime before I stopped you from walking into the bog. I was thinking about holding it for ransom, but, uh … I changed my mind.”
His mouth pressed into a thin line. Clearly, he was debating whether to say something acerbic or not. In the end, he did not, which was as good as a “thank you” in Shea’s book. He clasped the string of pearls around his neck, then tucked it safely inside his collar.
“It’s not really your style,” Shea said. “It was Irina’s, wasn’t it?”
“It was. The pearls were passed down to her from our great-grandmother. She fled Korea during the Japanese occupation. This is all that remains of the jewelry she managed to escape with.” He turned his faraway gaze back to Shea.
“You’re right that they suited Irina more than me.
She wore them almost every day, but she didn’t want to risk losing them to some faerie bargain in the Otherworld.
It seemed like a waste to keep them locked away. ”
She smiled faintly. “Wow. Who knew you had a sensitive side?”
He scowled, but there was a self-consciousness about him that was rather endearing. He rearranged the pieces into a new configuration, then gestured at the board between them. “Don’t distract me. What’s the best continuation of this line?”
“Seriously?”
“Black to play,” he said, uncompromising.
Shea studied the board. There was such a visceral, displeasing ugliness to black’s position, she could hardly stand to look at it. With a curl of her lip, she said, “This is disgusting.”
“Exactly.” There was a touch of irritation in his voice. “There’s no hope of winning, unless you count on your opponent blundering. But you can salvage a draw here.”
“I don’t want to—”
“I don’t care what you want to do,” he snapped. “You fight to the end, no matter what. There is no other option.”
Her chest constricted. “It’s not that I’m unwilling. It’s that I can’t!”
It burst out of her, louder than she intended. Daniil, clearly baffled, leaned backward. “What do you mean you can’t?”
“I meant what I told you.” Shea rested her head in her hands. “Midir is a killer. Literally. Ever since we played, I haven’t been the same. It’s like some piece of my soul died. When I’m about to lose, my brain doesn’t work right. I crumble, just like you said.”
“That’s complete nonsense. Do you really believe that?” When Shea didn’t reply, he went on. “There is nothing supernatural going on here. It’s in your head.”
“No, you don’t—”
“No. I do get it.” He slammed his fist against the board.
“Listen to me. He didn’t need to cast a spell on you, because you’re doing it for him.
He got in your head. He made you feel like nothing.
But you’re not. Your nerves are the only thing holding you back from being one of the greatest players of our generation. Can’t you see that?”
Shea’s breath caught. “What did you say?”
“Nice try. You only get that from me once.” He crossed his arms. “It’s true, as much as it pains me to say it.
I can’t teach you much, but I can teach you this.
I’ve been training to draw against Russian GMs since I was five years old.
Ever tried to hold a rook and three versus rook and four, knowing you’ll be ridiculed if you fail to do it?
Let me tell you, that will teach you resilience faster than anything. ”
Resilience. Yangmei had talked about it a thousand times before.
Shea had never been able to consider any other possibility than her own brokenness.
More than anything, she wanted to believe Daniil.
Could she? Could she really accept that the only thing standing in her way was herself? Quietly, she said, “I’m tired, Danya.”
“Me, too.” He pushed out the chair across from him with the toe of his shoe. “Sit down.”
She did. The two of them played in silence for a few minutes.
The discomfort of the position mounted as he dogged her king with his rook.
She moved her king into the corner. A horrible overwhelm descended on her as she stared down at it, cowering and unprotected.
It looked so hopeless, abandoned by its entire army.
Surely, it would be better to resign than endure this. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because one of us deserves to win.”
“All right.”
It might have been minutes or hours that they shuffled their pieces, circling, probing.
It was mind-numbing and horrible. Daniil was not a particularly expressive player, but he was decisive.
It was only when he made one impulsive pawn move—one that she immediately seized upon—that emotion showed on his face: annoyance. And maybe grudging respect.
He didn’t glance up as he offered a trade of pieces: a temporary measure to stave off the collapse of his crumbling position. Shea accepted it.
He leaned back in his seat, drinking in the ravaged battlefield. “I’ve been thinking. It doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game between us. If one of us wins, we can ask for the release of all people stolen from the mortal realm.”
Shea shook her head, uncertain she’d heard him correctly. “You would do that?”
At last, he glanced up at her. “Maybe. We’d have to consider the wording carefully.”
“Right,” Shea said quietly. “We would.”
He captured her knight, damaging his kingside pawn structure.
There was no other option. The longer Shea stared at the position, the clearer her plan became.
She could see it unfolding like a game of dominoes: one piece after another falling to her attack.
She advanced. And so, it happened: the moves played out exactly as she’d envisioned them.
At the end of the sequence, Daniil shook his head.
“If you manage to play like that again,” he said sourly, “you might have a shot. I should have let you self-sabotage forever.”
Shea grinned in spite of herself. “You better not lose. I’m counting on you.”
“I won’t,” he said simply. “I can’t let it end any other way.”